Nanoparticle research is currently an area of intense scientific research, due to a wide variety of potential applications in biomedical, optical, and electronic fields. In particular, semiconductor nanoparticles (such as silicon nanoparticles) are of special interest due to their potential uses in photovoltaic cells, photoluminescence-based devices, doped electroluminescent light emitters, memory devices and other microelectronic devices (e.g., diodes and transistors).
Common methods of generating Group IV semiconductor nanoparticles include laser pyrolysis, laser ablation, evaporation, gas discharge dissociation, and plasma. Unfortunately, presently known plasma reactors such as these are not generally optimized for continuous, commercial scale production of nanoparticles.